After a final rousing Easter hymn, Lilly Pulitzer's family streamed out of the church and embraced in memory of a woman who so transformed Palm Beach society that even her funeral looked more like a holiday celebration than a somber remembrance in black.

"Lilly was really the essence of the Palm Beach lady who decided to take a different path -- creative, colorful," said Palm Beach artist and Pulitzer friend Bruce Helander.

"I think my son walking her dogs when he was 10 years old," Suzanne Briley said. "We had a lot of laughs because she got a pig and he refused to walk the pig and that ended his job."

Added Sally O'Connor: "When we opened our bank down here, we went to see Lilly to dress everybody and she thought it was a hoot that we, as conservative Boston bankers, were asking her to dress us up in funny outfits. But she did and everybody wore all of the clothes forever and ever."

Helander said Palm Beach was better once Pulitzer arrived.

"Her door was always open, and there was always a party going on in there," he said. "And she changed the scene in Palm Beach. Maybe she came from a different planet, (but) when she landed, everything started to become exciting."